


Own Worst Enemy

by cabbagetop



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes-centric, Gen, Please see author's note for possible trigger warnings!, Thor Is Not Stupid, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-11-29 14:15:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11442594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabbagetop/pseuds/cabbagetop
Summary: Bucky's in from the cold, and he's hopeful that things can get better.  But when Stark makes it clear that he's not welcome, he tries his best to be good- after all, Stark's perfectly justified.  And the most important thing, really, is to keep Steve safely in Stark's good graces.It's lucky he's already learned how to be unseen, unheard, and unwanted.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings: probably a few, but I don’t know exactly what or how to word them. If there’s a trigger warning writing guide out there that someone could point me to I’d be very grateful.  
> I think there could possibly be warnings for eating disorders (nobody has an ED, but there is some description of unhealthy eating and a character deliberately deprives himself of food), some violent imagery in nightmares, and some serious lack of self-worth. If I’m missing anything PLEASE let me know and I'll fix it!  
> p.s. handwavy headcannons; no beta; thanks for reading! :)

“It’ll be fine,” Steve insists.  He’s pulling Bucky along by the hand and it feels just like when they were kids, if Bucky ignores the part where Steve’s actually big enough now to pull him along whether he wants to go or not.

Right now, that’s a definite _not_.

“Tony’s a good guy, I swear.  Besides, it’s crazy you’re living in the guy’s house and working on his team and you haven’t actually met him yet.”

“Sure.  Crazy,” Bucky mutters.  “And you didn’t take that as some kinda hint?  The guy doesn’t wanna see me, Steve.”

“Maybe,” Steve agrees amiably.  They’re walking along a hallway on some ungodly-high floor, looking out over New York through the floor-to-ceiling windows lining the whole thing, and it’ll be a long time still before Bucky stops wanting to press his nose to the glass and just stare out.  “Or maybe he hasn’t met you because you’ve been hiding and slinking around so he doesn’t get a _chance_ to see you, except when we’re having dinner- and then you hide yourself away between me, Sam and Natasha.”  They come up sharp to the elevators at the end of the hall and Bucky tries to dig his heels in, but Steve, the super-muscled punk, just pulls a little harder so Bucky’s socks slide him right in to the elevator.

“You could’ve at least let me get dressed,” Bucky grumbles, folding his arms.  Steve presses a button and they gravitate to stand shoulder to shoulder, like always.  “What would your momma say if she knew you were makin’ me meet our host in my pajamas?”

“Aw, don’t worry, sweetheart, you’re still gorgeous,” Steve coos.  Bucky kicks him hard behind the knee and gets a little satisfaction from the way Steve has to catch the railing to stay upright.  “Tony won’t care, he probably won’t even notice.  And if I’d let you get dressed, you would’ve just put on all black and disappeared into the shadows.  At least you can’t pull that trick in a Captain America shirt and plaid pants.”

Bucky opens his mouth to protest.  Steve raises his eyebrows in that insufferable way he has- _Captain America knows when you tell lies, dumbo._  It’s the post-serum variant of the look he’d give Bucky when they were kids and Bucky would try to convince the littler boy that somebody gave him a couple pieces of candy ‘cause he’d carried some groceries for them, and yeah, Bucky already ate his, that one’s just for Steve- _no_ , of course he didn’t steal it from the corner store, and it’s got nothin’ to do with the fact that he feels bad that Steve’s got the ‘flu again, just eat the damn candy, Stevie!  He closes his mouth.

Steve smirks.

Bucky hip-checks him.

They spend the rest of the ride kicking and shoving each other like brats.

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky’s heard all about how Stark gets when he’s shut up alone in his workshop, mostly from Steve and Dr. Banner when they’re complaining: deafeningly loud music, seizure-inducing flashes from holographic screens being thrown up and down all over the place, piles of possibly-weaponized junk tossed all over the place.  In the back of his mind Bucky’s been steeling himself, prepping so the place doesn’t set off his hair-trigger reflexes and send him into a flashback or panic attack (because he’s had enough of those recently, thank you very much, and they’re fucking embarrassing).  So he’s almost a little disappointed when the door opens to let them in a minute after Steve asks JARVIS to let Stark know they’re there, and the place is pretty benign, just some quiet background music and a few large screens with blueprints up on the walls.  There’s stuff lying around, sure, but it’s all shoved out of the way.  The regular ceiling lights are on but it’s not overly bright.

“Tony,” Steve beams, and grabs the guy in a big friendly handshake and shoulder clap.  Stark beams, shakes, and claps back, and Bucky gets his first in-person look at the younger Stark.

He looks a lot like the older one.

Bucky’s read everyone’s files, of course- firewalls and encryptions aren’t any match for the sneakiest assassin in the world- and he knows everything about Anthony Edward Stark from his primary school friends to the lumbar vertebra he cracked a few years back that’d make an easy target for quick incapacitation.  Somehow, though, he wasn’t quite ready to see a face so similar to one he’d once known as a target.

Nicer face, though.  Not so serious.  More lines like he laughs, less like he glares.

“-and I know he’s been here for weeks already but it seems like you two’ve never got a real chance to get to know each other, so I figured I’d bring him down here to say hi,” Steve’s saying, and he drags Bucky forward, face to face with Tony Stark.  There’s a pause where he and Stark stare blankly at each other, all the goodwill he’d had when looking at Steve suddenly gone from Stark’s face, and then Steve thumps Bucky hard on the back and he obediently holds out a hand.

“Hi,” Bucky says.

Stark’s eyes slide down from his face to his left shoulder and arm, completely unhidden by the sleeveless Captain America branded shirt he’d worn to bed, and stop there, widening.

Bucky knows what’s coming next.  He hunches his shoulders a little and lets his hand drop, turning his head away.  And sure enough-

“What the- oh, for fuck’s sake, that’s just- you know what?  No.  Just, no.”  Stark steps back, shaking his head.  He glares at Steve.  “What the hell, Cap?  You let him just wander around like that?”  He shakes his head again and strides back deeper in to the laboratory rooms, still throwing his arms in the air and talking, either to himself or to JARVIS.  Bucky picks out the words “ _no_ ” and “ _disgusting_ ” a few times before Stark gets too far away to hear.

Steve, when Bucky glances up, looks resigned.  Bucky sighs and turns on his heel.  “Could’ve told you that would happen,” he mutters, and heads back to the elevator.

“That’s just the way he is sometimes.  You’ll get used to it,” Steve says, and he sounds so pathetically longsuffering that Bucky can’t even blame him.

“Nothing to get used to, squirt,” he says, knuckling Steve’s head as they step into the elevator.  “Just shows he’s got better sense than you.”  Then he drops his arm around Steve’s ridiculously broad shoulders and squeezes him tight for a second, because he knows he’s going to have to stop seeing him so much now.

Can’t have Captain America’s standing with Iron Man falter, after all.  Bucky doesn’t have anything to give Steve anymore, but Stark takes care of him just fine.

_Disgusting._


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky doesn’t join the others for dinner that night, and resolves to stop showing up for the group meals.  It’s not like he needs to go- the kitchen in Steve’s apartment is kept well stocked via automatic grocery delivery even though Steve’s never actually used it, barely so much as opened the fridge, preferring to use the common area kitchen where he can chat with whoever else is around and set them all a good example for healthy eating.

_You let him just wander around like that?_

Clearly, he can’t be seen out of the apartment.  Stark doesn’t want him out.  That’s okay.  Bucky can find enough things to do there during the day to pass the time, reading or working out or exploring the internet on Steve’s tablet, and at night- well, he’s still the Winter Soldier somewhere inside his mixed-up head.  He can sneak out of the tower if he really has to go somewhere.

Two days later, he notices he’s finished the milk in the fridge and it hasn’t been replaced.

Nothing gets replaced after that.

Bucky closes his eyes and rests his forehead against a door of the slowly emptying cupboards.  He’s not even really that surprised.  Why should Stark have to spend his own good money to feed _him_?

For that matter, why should Stark have to house him?  He gets how he’s useful to the Avengers- expendable super-soldiers are always handy for a vigilante group to have around- and he gets why they would want to keep a potential loose cannon close.  And Bucky can’t actually move out of the tower into his own place, because Steve would be sad and probably do something stupid like try to follow him.  But he can make sure his presence isn’t noticed.  Zero footprint.  He’s had to do that often enough before on long reconnaissance missions.  So, what needs to go?

The doctor visits, obviously- both because Stark must be paying for them, as Bucky doesn’t have any money of his own, and because going to those requires leaving Steve’s rooms.  Besides, he doesn’t really need them anymore.  He’s as healed as he’s ever going to get, probably.

(Because no matter what Steve says, nightmares based on 70 years of murder and torture won’t go away just by talking about them; and for the physical hurts, well, sometimes he kind of wishes he were still a bit brainwashed.  Just a little bit, so he still wouldn’t be aware of how much it fucking hurts to have a heavy metal arm botch-job-bolted to his body.  Turns out HYDRA hadn’t been all that concerned with his nerve endings, funnily enough.  But these doctors have already said there’s nothing they can do.)

Domestic shit.  He can do his own laundry; he always had to before he’d been taken in by HYDRA, after all.  Nothing new there.  He doesn’t have much, just a few things Steve’s given him, so he has to wash them pretty often.  No need to make Stark’s staff deal with it.  And showers- hot water costs money, cold water doesn’t.  Nothing new there, either.  It’s not like he’s had time to really get used to hot showers anyway.  Every time he’s stepped into a shower stall at Stark Tower, with their multiple heads and massage jets and unlimited steaming water, it felt like some kind of dream-world luxury, and he knows those aren’t for him.

And he’ll stop using JARVIS.  It’s a bit of a shame, because he kinda likes the AI.  Guy’s got a good dry sense of humor.  He wakes Bucky up from the night terrors and coaches him through the panic attacks when Steve’s not there.  He answers all Bucky’s questions and gives him whatever he thinks Bucky needs to understand the modern free world.  It’s not like Bucky can’t take care of all that on his own, though, and even if JARVIS has a virtual brain the size of a planet, Stark’s got to have better things for him to concentrate on.

He’d already decided to stop using the communal gym, so that’s no problem.  The food thing Stark took care of himself.  Electricity and housecleaning…well, it’s Steve’s place, too, so there’s not much Bucky can do about those.  Still.  If he puts all those plans in place, and stops letting Steve talk him into spending time with the rest of the Avengers, Stark won’t even have to remember Bucky’s there until it’s time to send him out to kill things.

Seems like that’s how his life is supposed to be.

***

Shame about not being able to use the gym, Bucky thinks as he does pull-ups on the metal rod in his closet.  It’s not like he’s ever had a fancy gym or gadgets specifically tailored to super-soldiers before, though, so he really shouldn’t miss what he only had for a few weeks.  But it was pretty cool, sparring with the others.

He drops to the floor and starts his push-ups out in the bedroom.

“Would sir like me to turn on the lights?” JARVIS asks.

“No, thanks,” Bucky says shortly.

JARVIS doesn’t ask again.

***

Steve’s kitchen _was_ well stocked, but the thing is, being a super-soldier means burning a lot of calories sitting still.  Keeping in top physical shape means burning even more.  Steve told him once that he has to eat at least five times a day, five hundred to a thousand calories a meal.

Bucky’s not quite at Steve’s level, but he’s not too far behind.

He ignores Steve’s sad puppy eyes every dinnertime (Bucky taught the punk those suckers when they were trying to get out of trouble at school, who does he think he’s fooling?) and works his way through whatever’s in the cupboards.  He rations it all to give himself time to figure out what to do when it’s gone.

It’s okay.  He’s used to being hungry.  Everyone was hungry in the Army, and everyone was hungry when they were kids.

Well- except Steve, when he could help it.  Bucky never minded being a little hungrier when he could make Stevie believe that Bucky had already had his helping.  _This bowl’s just the leftover extras, nah, go on, you’re sick, you need your strength.  Go on, buddy, eat up while it’s still hot._

Same thing, really, he thinks to himself as he sits down on his bed to a dinner of graham crackers and canned peas.  He doesn’t mind being a little hungry if it means Stevie can stay in good with Tony Stark.

***

Steve catches him once when he’s washing his shirts in the kitchen sink, the sleeveless and the two long-sleeved shirts Steve offered him the first day he came to the tower.  He frowns.

“What are you doing?”

Bucky laughs, shirtless and up to his elbows in suds.  “What do you think, lamebrain?  You get so stuck up bein' the hero of the nation you forgot what doing laundry looks like?”

Steve grins and knocks shoulders when he passes to grab his sketchbook where he’d left it on the kitchen counter.  “What, did you get so old you forgot they have regular in-home washing machines that do the work for you now?  And staff to pick it up and run it and bring it back for you?”

Bucky shrugs and keeps scrubbing.  The water’s cold and he’s using a little bit of the boxed soap he found under the sink that’s probably supposed to go in the dishwasher.  He washes his dishes by hand without soap to make up for it.  “Don’t like the smell of the detergent they use here, that’s all.”

“You could tell Tony,” Steve points out, leaning back against the kitchen island.  “He’d tell them to use a different one for your stuff.  Problem solved.”

“Nah, I’m good.”  Bucky wets his fingers and flicks water at Steve to make him drop it.

***

“Nobody’s seen you in ages,” Steve says one night when he comes into the apartment.  He drops heavily on the sofa and asks JARVIS to start up something from the list of comedy movies people say he needs to see.  “They’re having video game night down there.  I came up ‘cause I wanna turn in early but you could go down and play.”

Bucky doesn’t watch movies or tv unless Steve’s the one to turn it on, so he’s happy enough to sit down with him.  “Nah,” he says, and pulls Steve into his side with an arm around his shoulders, legs up next to Steve’s on the coffee table, still a little put out- even after all this time- that his toes only just reach Steve’s ankles when he points them.  It feels a little different to sit this way when Steve’s so much bigger, but they still settle in fine.  “Let’s have movie night up here, huh?  What are we watching?”

“Something Clint recommended.  Clint doesn’t believe you actually live here anymore,” Steve tells him.  Bucky can’t see his face without picking his head off his shoulder but it sounds like he’s sulking, which makes him grin.  Big ol’ Captain America never grew out of the poky lipped pout little Stevie Rogers always used.  “He thinks you’re off on a top secret mission somewhere.  You still haven’t met Thor even though he came back a week ago, so he seems to think you’re either some kind of spirit or a piece of tech like JARVIS.”

“What, and all that black leather costume was actually empty or somethin’?”

“I guess?”  Steve wrinkles up his nose.  “Wasn’t that in a science fiction serial?  Anyway, no matter what you’re made of, he really wants to meet the ‘famous protector and shield-brother of Captain America.’  I told him some stories about you.  He wants to take you partying in Asgard.   He says you’d fit right in with his guys up there.”

Bucky’s dreams that night are plagued with visions of himself strapped down in a chair with Tony Stark opening up his arm, opening up his chest and finding nothing inside.

“Nope, all empty, just like I thought.  Nothing human left in there!”  Stark turns to Steve, standing behind him, peering into Bucky’s empty chest with tears in his eyes.  “You liked him, didn’t you?  You actually liked this monster.  You see what he really is, now?  You don’t deserve anything from me after this.  JARVIS, no more food for Captain Rogers!”

And Stevie’s standing there, clutching his empty belly, small and hungry and whimpering, and Bucky has nothing to give him because he’s empty and cold, everything’s so goddamn cold-

“Sir.  Sir, your vital statistics indicate that you are experiencing a nightmare.  Sergeant Barnes, it would be best if you would awaken as soon as possible.”

Bucky gasps awake, clutching the blankets in his fists, all the muscles of his chest straining and making his left shoulder burn.  “I’m awake,” he pants.  “I’m awake.  Thanks, JARVIS.”

“Would sir like me to alert Captain Rogers?”

“No.”  Bucky sits ups and leans forward, resting his head in his hands and his elbows on his legs, dragging his fingers tightly through his hair.  He hates his hair long.  Hates it.  Just makes him think of HYDRA.  The only reason it’s long is because they never cut it for him or ordered him to cut it himself, and he didn’t have enough autonomy to manage even that much on his own.  But he’s only any good to the Avengers if the bad guys recognize him as the fierce Winter Soldier, so the long hair has to stay.

“Is Steve asleep?” he asks the ceiling.

“Yes, sir.”

“Thanks.  Hey, JARVIS?”

“Sir?”

“Don’t bother with waking me up again, okay?  Actually, scratch that.  Just don’t watch me anymore at all.”

There’s a pause.  “My protocols direct me to keep observation on every person in the building, with particular emphasis placed on the permanent residents,” JARVIS says.

“Well, I’m not a permanent resident,” Bucky points out.  God, he’s arguing with a talking ceiling.  What a world he woke up in.  “So, you know, you don’t need to keep any more observation on me than you would on, say, the guy who cleans up the trash in the back alley.”  He huffs a laugh.  “That’s pretty much my job anyway, right?”

There’s another pause.  “Very well, sir.”

Bucky would say JARVIS sounded a little frosty and disappointed, but he’s a robot, so Bucky’s probably making that part up.

There’s a blanket covering the duvet on Bucky’s bed.  That’s more than enough for him, so he slides out the duvet and slips silently into Steve’s room.  Steve doesn’t stir.  If he were anyone else, Bucky knows Steve would be on his feet with a gun in his hand the moment he walked through the door, just like they learned in the war, but they know each other too well for that, even in sleep.  Steve just rolls a little and keeps snoring softly as Bucky carefully lays the duvet out over the top of Steve’s own, then creeps back to his own room.

He doesn’t want any more dreams about Steve being cold.

***

“Hey, you wanna come down to the gym this afternoon?  Natasha mentioned that she’d like to spar with you again.”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“You sure?  I kinda wanted to spar with you, too.”

“What, and we need a gym to do that?”

“Well, it’s a little easier.”

“You think, pint-size?  I’ll bet I can show you who’s boss pretty easy right here.”

“What?  Hey- no.  Bucky, don’t you dare- don’t you- stop it!”

“Nope.  Come on, whatcha gonna do if you get caught like this with an enemy, huh?  You just gonna laugh and squeal ‘em to death?”

“Enemies don’t go for tickle fights, Bucky!”

“I dunno ‘bout that, jelly bean.  We know there’s aliens and robots and Norse gods, there could be tickle fighters.”

Steve finally wriggles away and shoots off to the elevator, still giggling as the doors close between them.  Bucky lays back on the floor.  He’s lucky Stark doesn’t mind him living in Steve’s apartment, and that Steve naturally spends a fair amount of time in here, he thinks.  Things would be a lot harder if he’d had to give up Steve, too.

***

Bucky gets good at waking himself up from the nightmares without screaming, but sometimes it’s easier to just not sleep.

Night time’s a good chance to explore the common areas, anyway, knowing nobody will be there and he can double-check security as he likes.  He likes seeing where Stevie’s made a life for himself, too.  There are pictures on the walls of the main lounge, Stevie and all the rest of the guys hanging out together or posing after victories.  Bucky likes looking at those.

He knows from being told that Stark doesn’t sleep much, either, but he’d thought that the engineer spent long nights mostly in his workshop, so he’s completely surprised one night when he’s examining a photo of Steve and Sam ‘racing’ each other through a park- Steve’s got Natasha sitting on his shoulders and Clint balanced on top of hers, apparently to make things more even- and the elevator opens behind him.

Stark steps out, and freezes.  They stare at each other for a moment.

“Barnes?”  Stark says, and he sounds like he chokes on it.  “What the _hell?”_

Bucky vanishes before Stark has to tell him to.

He stops exploring.


	3. Chapter 3

The food runs out.

It’s okay.  He has plans.  He’d hoped to put them in action while he still had a week’s worth of rations left, in case of emergencies (and maybe some tiny part of his mind hoped that if he was really, really good, completely invisible, Stark might feel like giving him food again), but Steve spent several nights in a row staying up late, and then there was an Avengers call-out where he and Natasha were sent to pre-emptively infiltrate a potential terrorist cell and bring back their tech designer along with any info they could gather.  They’d ended up bringing the whole thing down to the ground.  It hadn’t been a particularly hard fight, but he’d been seriously hungry when he got back to the tower and burned through three days’ rations in just a few minutes.

Beating up scores of terrorists will do that to you.

Bucky waits until he can hear the steady, shallow snores that mean Steve is deeply asleep.  Then he dresses in his jeans, one of the long-sleeved shirts, a plain blue hoodie he’s borrowed for the occasion out of Steve’s closet, and his black leather uniform gloves.  They look a bit strange with the outfit, but if anyone asks, he’ll just tell them he rode a motorcycle in.  He pulls most of his hair back with a rubber band into a style like he’s seen a few guys wearing on tv.

It feels weird.  He knows the new world is an open-minded place, but pigtails just belong on broads, not joes, he thinks.  Even if it is kinda nice to finally have his hair out of his eyes.

Then he slips out of the tower.

It’s not easy.  There’s a point where he has to crawl through the ventilation in order to bypass the elevators, and he nearly gets caught by one of the sensors Clint put in to detect anyone other than himself using the pipes.  Then there’s getting past JARVIS, which is impossible.  Bucky figured out long before he moved in, back when he was still the Winter Soldier and wondering why the hell he felt this need to watch over Captain America, that Stark’s AI is just too good to fool.  All he can do is piggyback on other people’s movements in order to not attract personal attention, and get the hell in or out as quickly as possible.  At least now that he’s asked JARVIS to ignore him he shouldn’t have to worry about the AI alerting Stark that he’s leaving Steve’s room unsupervised.

Unless Stark’s put a specific alarm out for that.  Which isn’t all that unlikely, really- but there’s nothing for it.  Bucky needs food if he’s going to stay fit for duty, and food means going out into the city.

Bucky drops out of a mail chute in the loading bays under the building and takes his first breath of fresh air.  It smells like New York: car exhaust, pizza, cigarettes, trash.  The water, cold air.  He checks his gloves and his neckline to make sure his metal arm is completely covered and sets off, hopeful.

***

“Sorry, man.  No SSN, no job,” the first manager tells him.  He actually sounds sympathetic.  “But, hey, maybe you can try this place a few blocks down- _Sergio’s._   I think they can probably take you on under the table.”

“He thought wrong,” the manager at _Sergio’s_ says sharply.  She doesn’t sound sympathetic at all.  “We had too many close calls.  We don’t take undocumented workers anymore.  Just get your paperwork and do it right, okay?  It’s not even that hard these days.”

Maybe not for immigrants, Bucky wants to tell her.  But for never-aging former most-wanted assassins?  It probably is.

Bucky shakes her hand anyway and walks on, wondering when it got so difficult to work and feeling his plans fall away.  He hadn’t thought about needing identification beyond a fake driver's license, and none of the contingency plans he’s got will fare any better than the first one.

(His last resort is underground fights- there’s always money to be made there, but Steve will notice the bruises, and whatever's left of HYDRA probably has an eye on places like that.)

His stomach aches, and he knows he has to eat if he’s going to be in any shape to work for the Avengers.  He steals a couple boxes of protein bars and powdered milk from a corner store and wonders how to apologize to Stark for bringing theft into his house on top of everything else.

“ _Disgusting,”_ he hears in his head as he inhales a protein bar on his way back to the tower.  He’s still hungry afterwards, but he doesn’t feel like eating anymore.

***

“Bruce says you stopped seeing the therapists,” Steve says when he comes in one afternoon.

Bucky pauses at the top of a sit-up and shrugs.  “Didn’t really see the point of going anymore.”

“They weren’t helping?”

Bucky scoffs and gets to his feet.  He’s a little stiff; with the calorie restriction he’s on, his muscles aren’t recovering as quickly as they used to.  “Is that your way of telling me you think I’m still crazy, Rogers?”

Steve splutters a bit before he realizes Bucky’s joking.  Then he throws a water bottle at him.

***

Bucky and Clint are told to scope out an old munitions factory that should be abandoned, but might be showing signs of life.

Or might just have some big birds nesting in the rafters.  Who knows.

“That’s why we’re sending you two,” Stark explains over the coms as they head out.  “If it’s bad guys, you can kill ‘em.  If it’s birds, they’ll see Clint and think he’s one of their own, or they’ll try to nest in Barnes’ hair.”

“Hey there, Bucky-boy,” Clint says, ignoring Stark and slapping his shoulder.  “Haven’t seen you in a while.  Where’ve you been?”

“Busy,” Bucky says gruffly, with a sort of half serious, half weary expression that he knows will only support the archer’s idea that he’s been away on secret missions.  Sure enough, Clint just nods and lets it go.

“Good to see you back, man.  Must’ve been a tough one, huh?  You look like you lost some weight.”

“Hm.”  Bucky studies the surveillance photos on the tablet he’s been lent for the mission, and points at a tiny spot of reflected light.  “That look like a sniper point to you?”

“Goddammit.  There goes my night off.”

The flash of metal Bucky sees is a sniper point after all.  The factory’s not being used yet, but it’s well guarded in preparation.  He’s hit in the left arm when Clint jumps too far and is lying briefly winded on a rooftop, and Bucky doesn’t have anything else to deflect the armor-piercing bullet.

It hurts; _God_ , it hurts, almost worse than being shot in the flesh, because when his metal arm gets damaged all the nerve endings of his left upper body go crazy and no amount of shock or adrenaline can deaden the source of the pain.  The arm sparks and buzzes angrily, the plates over his bicep are crumpled and jammed, and his fine motor control is gone to hell.

He can still force his finger to pull a trigger, though, and the marksmen go down, one after the other in rapid succession.

“Site is clear,” he barks to whoever’s monitoring the coms.  “Send clean-up and medical.”

“Medical?”

It’s Stark’s voice, so Bucky swallows down anything he might have been about to say about his arm and just reports the necessaries in a flat voice instead.  “Clint was knocked around a little, probably has a mild concussion.  That’s all.”

Stark sighs.  “Good.  That’s great.  SHIELD will come take over.  Guess we'll see you soon.”

The last part sounds dubious, almost like a question.

You won’t, Bucky promises him silently, earnestly.  I swear you won’t.  I’ll do it right.

He tugs his jacket carefully over his left arm, black spots dancing in front of his eyes when he has to shift his elbow.  He’ll show Steve when he gets back; Stevie’s probably got some kind of tool kit they can use to patch him up.

Only, when he steps out of the elevator-

“You hungry?” Steve asks hopefully.  He’s all ready to go downstairs, just waiting on Bucky before he leaves.  “Thor brought Thai food.  Tony said we should have a post-mission team dinner even if only two of the team went on it, because you took out enough bad guys for all of us.”

 _Tony said…team dinner_.  Bucky doesn’t have to be a genius to work that one out.  “Nah,” he says, and he doesn’t have to fake the tired tone in his voice.  “I’m beat, pal.  Gonna go wash up and hit the sack.”

“Oh.”  Steve’s shoulders slump a little.  “Hey, Bucky…”

Bucky pauses in the doorway to his bedroom, keeping his ripped jacket tightly closed around his shoulder.  “Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

Bucky frowns.  “Sure, why?”

Steve looks open and concerned, and Bucky knows he’s not doing _something_ well enough.  “It’s just…I know you need time and space and everything, and nobody wants to crowd you, but it’d be nice if you ever wanted to hang out with the rest of the guys, you know?”  Bucky’s blank expression must not give him whatever he’s hoping for, because he sighs and turns away to the elevator.  “And you look like you’re losing weight.  Make sure you’re eating enough, okay?”

Just to please Steve, even if he won’t know about it, Bucky has three protein bars for dinner instead of two, and a whole glass of rehydrated milk.


	4. Chapter 4

He wakes up gasping and shaking.  His shoulder’s on fire and his arm burns and his chest feels like it’s been bashed in to smithereens- he has to get to Steve- whatever they’re doing to him, he can’t let them get to Steve- no, he can’t get _to_ Steve, has to get _away_ , as far away as he can, or he’ll lead them right to him- has to get _away_ -

Bucky slides out of bed and his stomach is so tight and churning that he throws up the moment he turns his head.  Has to get _away_.

His arm isn’t working.  They’ve turned it off, they’re hurting him again, trying to find Steve, they’ve found him, he always knew they would-

Has to get away from Steve.

***

“Hey, anybody seen Bucky this morning?” Steve asks, stirring sugar and milk into his coffee.  He’s not really a huge fan of the taste, but it’s still such a novelty to waste sugar like this that he can’t help doing it.

Tony snorts.  “Dude, I haven’t seen Bucky in _weeks_.”

“Pretty sure it’s months for me,” Bruce mumbles, not looking up from his tablet.

“I have not yet met Sergeant Bucky,” Thor announces.  Sugar apparently isn’t a big thing on Asgard, either, so he’s got his usual pile of syrup-soaked pancakes along with a mountain of sausage and eggs.

Steve sips, then frowns.  “Wait, really?”

“Steve, you’re the only one who ever sees him at all,” Tony says, sounding exasperated.  “If it weren’t for you talking about him, and the part where he still shows up for work, we’d all assume he’d left ages ago.”

“Why didn’t any of you say anything?”

“...You didn’t know?”

“We thought he just needed his space,” Clint says.  “You know, PTSD.”

“I knew he wasn’t leaving our apartment much, but I figured he was just seeing each of you a little in his own time.”

“Okay,” Tony says, palms landing flat on the table.  “I can’t speak for anyone else, but since you brought him down to my workshop that first time, I have seen him exactly once, a few weeks ago, for about three seconds.  Before he took off like a scared ninja bunny rabbit.”

“Look…” Steve deliberately shuts down the thoughts whirling through his head and scrubs his hands over his face.  “Okay, we’ve gotta talk about this later.  Right now, I can’t find him, and I’m worried.”

“JARVIS, where is Bucky Barnes?” Tony asks.

“ _Sir, Sergeant Barnes is not within the tower_.”

“What?”

“When did he leave?”

“ _Sergeant Barnes left his bedroom at three twenty-three this morning, and exited the building via a post pick-up point in the south-east cargo bays at three fifty-six.”_

“That’s over four hours ago!”

“How did he seem to you, Master JARVIS?” Thor interrupts.  “Which way did he go?”

“ _Your Highness, Sergeant Barnes’ vitals indicated that he was in a state of considerable distress_ -“

Tony throws up his arms.  “Why the fuck didn’t you say anything, J?!”

“ _Sergeant Barnes specifically requested some time ago that I not alert anyone when he was in need of assistance, or keep a close watch on him at any time.  As you instructed me to give Sergeant Barnes ‘privacy,’ I had no reason to refuse_.”

“For fuck’s sake.  Your medical override protocols are getting _such_ a massive overhaul when we get him back.”

“ _Yes, sir.  I believe that will be very helpful for future emergencies.  To answer Captain Rogers’ second question, Sergeant Barnes departed from the building on foot in an easterly direction.  No-one followed him, nor did he receive any communications prior to his departure_.”

“Right, so everything’s only a little bit completely fucked up,” Tony says, teeth set.  “I’m thinking this is a panic attack or a flashback, not a mission or an escape attempt.  Cap, you and Natasha have the best chances of finding him first, and me and Thor have the best chance of pinning him down if he’s stuck in Winter Soldier mode, so we’ll split up- Rogers, you, me, and JARVIS in one group; Tasha, Clint, and Thor in the other.  Bruce, you’re in charge of getting this place set up for when we get back- bring anything we might need if he’s hurt out here to the living room.  He’ll be more comfortable here than in the lab or the medical center.  Ready?  Move out.”

***

Cold, cold, cold.

Everything is so damn _cold_ , and he _hurts._

It’s so familiar it’s almost comforting, in a way.

And Steve’s not there, which is good.

He doesn’t like it when Stevie’s cold; it makes his chest ache and he coughs.

Bucky tucks himself further back into the corner he’s made.  He’s not far from Steve, he couldn’t _get_ far before he couldn’t keep going anymore, but he’s far enough they’ll just take him first and not go for Steve right now.

Stark will keep Steve safe.  Bucky didn’t take anything from him, let him pretend that Bucky wasn’t there, so Stark will keep Steve safe.

***

“Bucky!”

“Nobody’s seen him.  Natasha says they’ve got nothing down their way, either.  How fucking hard can it be to notice a super-soldier with a shiny metal arm and long hair wearing pajamas?  Even in New York!”

“Bucky, come on, please!”

“I’m sorry, Steve, but if Barnes is stuck in his own head, I don’t think he’s going to come out just because you call."

"I know, I just…God, how do we know he’s even still in the state, let alone the city?”

“Because JARVIS doesn’t think he was in good enough shape when he left to get more than a few blocks.  Any updates, J?”

“ _Sir, my scans are picking up intermittent pulses of electromagnetism similar to that used in Sergeant Barnes’ arm_.”

“Where?”

“ _Approximately a quarter mile from Agents Barton and Romanoff and Prince Thor’s position.  I am directing them to the site now and have instructed them to contact you on arrival._ ”

***

“Jesus.  How did he even get himself back there?”

“He must have squeezed under the dumpster.  We can’t just pull him out, he’ll wake up and panic.”

“Shit, even from here his arm looks fucked up.  Okay.  I’ll get on top of the dumpster and try to lever him up a little, you go to the end-”

“A moment, archer."

“…or Thor could just pick up the dumpster.”

“Or that.  Just set it over there, Thor.”

“Sergeant Barnes?  Sergeant Barnes.  You need to wake up now, my friend.  You have people who worry for you, waiting for you.”

“Shit.  He looks horrible.”

“He's completely out of it.  Thor, just fly him back to the tower.  He needs medical attention.  Now.”

“Careful, big guy.  Here- shit, his _arm_.”

“He’s freezing.  He's not reacting- even if he's hurt or sick he should be trying to fight us.  They would've trained him to resist capture until it killed him.  This isn't good."

“No shit it isn't good!  Here, cradle his head.  Tasha, give me your jacket, we’ll use yours to keep his arm tight to his chest and put mine over him.  And- yeah, wrap the cape over, too."

"Why are you even wearing your cape, Thor?"

"Our good host Stark suggested that I wear the cape whenever I fly so that the citizens of New York will not be affeared of a new villain."

“Huh.”

"There.  Good to go, Thor.  Don’t shake him around.”

“I will be careful.”

***

“Steve, they’ve got him!”

“Oh, thank God.  How is he?”

“Doesn’t sound good.  Thor’s flying him back to the tower now.  JARVIS, anything Sergeant Barnes has asked you to do is officially out of the window.  Master override, passcode BB-84.  I want updates and complete scan results the second Thor brings him into the building.”

“ _Yes, sir.”_


	5. Chapter 5

Bucky doesn’t remember closing his eyes.

They’re closed, though, so he must’ve done it at some point.  The dark is the first thing he notices.

He’s not cold anymore.  That’s the second thing.

Other senses start filtering in slowly, irregularly.  He can smell Steve- a scent he’s never been able to put words to but one he’d know anytime, anywhere.  He’s lying on something soft and there’s a hot, heavy weight from his neck to his toes, hotter and heavier down his right side.

He’s sweaty.  Voices are talking nearby, but not near enough to make out.

His left arm is gone.

Bucky opens his eyes.

He’s lying on the sofa in the Avengers’ common lounge with what looks like every blanket in Stark Tower piled on top of him and Steve Rogers lying next to him, wedged in between Bucky and the back of the sofa, arm thrown over the blankets roughly where his waist might be.

“Sergeant Barnes,” a soft voice says.

Bucky turns his head to look up.  It makes his neck and shoulder hurt.  A guy that makes Stark look well-rested is leaning over the back of the sofa, shirt collar wrinkled and the top button missing.  His glasses are sliding down his nose, and he looks soft.  Deceptively unthreatening.

Bucky opens his mouth to answer but his dry throat locks up and no sound comes out.

Dr. Banner smiles and hushes him.  “Just go back to sleep, okay?  I've got you on the really good drugs, so you don't have a whole lot of choice about that.  You're back in Stark Tower.  You're safe.  Everything can wait.”

There’s a sudden shuffling noise from somewhere behind the sofa and a “Hey, Bruce, is he awake?”

“Nope,” Dr. Banner calls back.

Bucky frowns, and opens his mouth to argue, but Bruce starts mumbling over him, something about calculating absorption rates and exponentially increased metabolisms, and Bucky’s back out like a light.

***

“I don’t understand,” Steve’s voice whispers.  “What’s going on with you, Buck?”

“Whassamatter?” Bucky asks groggily.  His mouth is dry like something died in it and he can't quite get his eyes open.  He feels like he’s got the worst hangover of his life.  “You ‘kay?”

“Yeah, Bucky, I’m okay,” Steve sighs.  “Why didn’t you tell me you _weren’t_ okay, huh?”

This doesn’t make any sense.  “You’re okay, ‘s’all okay,” he tries to explain.  He wants to pat Stevie on the back but his arms feel too weighed down to move.

“Aw, that’s just sweet,” somebody says.  Bucky knows that voice.  That’s Tony Stark.  Steve has to stay in good with Tony Stark.  He doesn’t want to see Bucky.  Bucky frowns and tries to squirm away.

“No, Bucky, stay still.”

“Hey, whoa, there, hot stuff.  You’re hooked up to a lot of drips, you’re gonna pull the needles out if you wriggle too much.”

“Gotta go,” Bucky tells Steve.  His eyes finally slit open and he can just make out Steve’s blurry face.  “Stark’s here.  Gotta go.”

“What?”

“Stark,” Bucky reminds him.  “Thinks I’m ‘sgusting, don’t wanna see me.  Not ‘sposed to be out.  I gotta go back in the room.”

Steve just stares at him.

“Jesus Christ,” somebody else says.  “Tony, what the fuck?”

“I don’t know,” Stark snaps, and he sounds agitated.  Bucky needs to leave.  He tries to get up again but Steve gently pins him down.  “Fuck, yes I do.  Eidetic memory for the _fucking_ win.  Steve, when you brought him down to my workshop, remember what I said?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, looking confused.  “You complained about the state of his arm and stormed off to one of the labs.”

“I said it was disgusting, shitty workmanship and I couldn’t believe you were letting him wander around like that.”

“I didn’t hear all that.”

“Well, I don’t think he did either!”

Bucky’s brain is slowly coming back online.  He blinks until his eyes clear and sees Steve crouched down on the floor next to him, eyes red and tired.  Stark is pacing the room, hands shoved hard into his hair.  Clint, Dr. Banner, and Natasha are grouped across the room between a loveseat and an armchair.  Thor’s leaning over the back of the sofa, arms folded on the back, chin resting on his arms.  He catches Bucky’s eyes.

“Water?” the god asks softly.

“Please.”

Steve helps him sit up and Thor holds the cup to his lips, carefully letting him take sips and swallow.  Bucky still can’t move his arms- arm, now the left one’s been taken away- so he just shakes his head when he’s done.  And there’s another thought.

“’m I off the team?” he asks Steve.

Steve frowns again.  “Why would you be off the team, Buck?”

Bucky shrugs his left shoulder.  “Arm’s gone.  Did I break it too bad this time to get fixed?”

Stark snorts and sharply switches direction, heading back to the sofa.  “Like there’s anything in the world I can’t fix when I’m in my own labs.  Buck.  Hey.  Listen to me.  No, eyes up here, bud.”

Stark sits on the edge of the sofa by Bucky’s hip and taps the underside of his chin until they make eye contact.  Bucky sets his jaw and waits for the lecture.  He knows he fucked up somehow.  He can take it.

“Bucky.  James.  Serious time.  We need to talk.”

Bucky nods.

“Okay.  So.  Tell me what happened.”

Bucky thinks.  It’s fuzzy.  He remembers waking up and his arm hurting, panicking, thinking he’d been attacked by HYDRA again and he had to draw them away from Steve.  He sighs.  “Had a panic attack, I think,” he admits.  It’s hard to maintain eye contact when he’s feeling this ashamed of himself.  “I woke up and thought HYDRA found me again, and I had to lead them away.”

“Mmmkay, sounds about right,” Stark agrees.  “That explains how you got outside this morning, wedged behind a dumpster.  Though I gotta say we’d already guessed it was something like that.  No, there’s three other things I need you to enlighten me on, okay?  One.”  He holds up a finger.  “Why you didn’t tell anyone you got shot in the firefight yesterday with Clint.  Two.”  Another finger goes up.  “Why you’re dangerously underweight and malnutritioned.  Two-point-five, what the hell you’ve been eating, because we’ve finally thought to compare notes and apparently nobody’s seen you take so much as a peanut from the communal kitchen. And three, which probably should be number one, did you really, seriously misunderstand that day and think I was telling you to stay hidden away?”

There’s a long pause.  Everyone’s watching him, now.  Bucky’s pretty sure his foggy brain’s still not working right, because none of that made any _sense_.  He chokes out a cough.  “Look…I dunno what you wanna hear but it’s not Steve’s fault, okay?”

“What isn’t?”

“Anything.”

“Okay, well, good reminder that the Winchester brothers got nothin' on you.” Stark rolls his eyes.  “I promise I know that nothing is your sweetheart Stevie’s fault, okay?  Answers, Buck.  Easy ones first.  What have you been eating since your kitchen’s grocery order stopped?”

Bucky cringes.  Stark obviously knows that he’s been stealing, and he’s going to make him admit it to everyone.  Before he can answer, though, Clint jumps in.

“Wait, why did you stop his grocery order?”

Stark keeps his eyes fixed on Bucky’s when he answers.  “Because Steve and I thought it would help push him to socialize with the rest of us if he had to come down here to eat.  Neither of us ever actually saw him down here in the kitchen, but we just assumed he was slipping in and out at other times.  Apparently not.  Bucky, you haven’t been getting deliveries, and you haven’t been leaving the tower to go out for every meal.  Steve’s kitchen is empty except for a box of powdered milk and some granola bar wrappers.  What are you eating?”

Bucky clears his throat.  Steve isn’t arguing the first part of Stark’s explanation.  His stomach’s been twisting since he woke up but now it feels like a rock.  “I…that,” he stutters.  “Milk an’ the protein bars.  Not too many of them,” he adds quickly.  “’Cause I didn’t have the money to buy ‘em so I didn’t wanna have to take too many a'fore I could find a way to pay ‘em back.”

“And why did you choose to live on stolen granola bars instead of just taking food from the kitchen?”

“’Cause I wasn’t supposed to.”  Bucky’s frustrated now.  This makes no _sense_.  “You didn’t want me around, so I couldn’t eat with the others, and then you stopped stocking the kitchen.  Seemed pretty obvious to me that you didn’t wanna be wasting your dime on me anymore.”

Steve makes a wounded noise.  Stark drops his head in his hands.  “JARVIS,” Starks says to the floor.  “What else has this idiot been doing because he thought he had to save the multi-multi-billionaire money?”

“On reviewing electrical meters, calendars and security footage,” JARVIS announces, “it appears that after you cancelled grocery delivery to Captain Rogers’ suite, Sergeant Barnes ended his medical and psychiatric appointments and ceased his use of the television and electric lights except when in the presence of Captain Rogers.  He also hand-laundered his own clothing and bedding and restricted his showers to three minutes daily.  Cold water.”

“Fuck me,” Stark sighs.  “What else did he start or stop doing between the time Steve brought him down to my workshop and now, JARVIS?”

“After visiting your workshop, Sergeant Barnes dramatically reduced his time in the common areas of the building, and ceased his visits to the Avengers’ gym entirely.”

“Only sneaking out at night when you thought everyone was asleep,” Stark says.  “That’s what you were doing that one time I bumped into you, huh?”

Bucky scowls.  “I didn’t know you’d be there.  I stopped coming down after that.  I wouldn’t have started if I’d known you might be there!”

“Bucky,” Steve pipes up, and what the hell?  Because Steve looks like he’s almost in tears.  “Bucky, I’m so _sorry_.”

“Hey, hey.”  That’s not right at all.  Bucky finally manages to wriggle his right arm out from under all the blankets, somehow not dislodging the needles stuck in his arm and the back of his hand, and strokes Steve’s hair back roughly.  “Ain’t nothin’ for you to be sorry for, punk.  I made my own messes.  Stark’s just got sense enough to see it, even if you don’t.”

“Whoa, hey, no.  _No_.  I don’t see anything.  Look, can you guys all clear out for a bit?” Stark says, twisting around to look at the Avengers huddled up across the room.  “I think me and these two need to have a little chat alone before we all start in on the group hug and the kumbayah.”

Natasha and Clint nod, splitting off in different directions.  Dr. Banner takes one quick look over the IV needles and bags before he leaves.  Thor, Bucky suddenly realizes, is still leaning over the back of the sofa, with an arm planted behind him to help hold Bucky upright.  Bucky tips his head back to rest on those insane muscles and peers up at him.

“You’re real warm, you know that?” he tells him.

Thor smiles.  “I have heard so from others of Midgard.”

“…Did you just call me somethin’ funny?  Is ‘Midgard,’ like, the Norse god version of ‘stupidtown’ or somethin’?”

Stark snorts.  “Ugh.  How is this even my life?  Explaining Asgardian slang to a sort-of-time-travelling super-soldier with a guilt complex so big he’d probably starve so he could feed kittens and puppies.”

The words are out of Bucky’s mouth before he even thinks about it.  “See, Rogers, always told ya you were like a scraggly puppy.”

“Jerk.”

“Punk.”

“Oh my god, I’m seriously in an episode of _Supernatural_ ,” Stark interrupts.  “Okay.  Thor, I guess you’re staying, because…why not.”

Thor shrugs his broad shoulders.  The movement makes Bucky rock like he’s on a boat.  “I am many things, as the son of Odin.  Among other strengths, I am called on by our people for blessings of healing.”

Stark stares at him.  "What, _you_?  Mister 'What is this bandage you speak of, Asgardians wear their gaping bloody wounds with honor and pride'?"

"Yes," Thor says simply.  "Also within my domain of influence are the plants you Midgardians call oak trees, the fertility of fields, and goats."

There's a pause.

"Goats," Steve says.

" _Goats_ ," Stark sniggers.  " _Goats._   You, big Norse beauty queen, thunderbolts and lightning, are the god _of goats_."

Thor clears his throat pointedly.  “Levity and laughter are great healers indeed, but I believe we should lance the true wounds first.”

Steve immediately looks shamefaced and sits down behind Bucky, propping him up against his shoulder.  Thor’s left free to round the sofa and take one of the table-like footstools.

“Yeah,” Stark sighs.  “That.  Okay.  Look.  Bucky.  Bucky-bear.   When I flipped my shit in the workshop that day, it was because I was looking at your arm.”

“I know,” Bucky says quickly.  The lack of it actually makes sense now he takes the time to think.  Stark probably didn’t want to have to look at it while Steve made the doctors take care of him.

“No, you _don’t_ know,” Stark argues.  He grabs Bucky’s knee through the mountain of blankets and shakes gently.  “I saw the bionic arm and got mad because it looked like shit.  The tech is amazing, yeah, but it’s also outdated and majorly fucked up.  It was a Frankenstein of an operation when they stuck it on you and- remember, super-genius here- I could see in that first glance that it had to be giving you a lot of pain all the time, the way it’s connected to your ribs and your collarbone and your spine to support its own weight.  I don’t know how you’ve been walking around without a steady stream of painkillers.  So I was disgusted by HYDRA’s work-

_“…disgusting…”_

“-and I was pissed off that Cap let you go around with that junk hanging off you, hurting you, when I’d been right there the whole time and could’ve started working on how to fix it the very first day you moved in.

_“You let him just wander around like that?”_

“Make sense?”

“No,” Bucky says truthfully.

“Points for honesty.  Well,” Stark plows on.  “Next item on the agenda.  I didn’t cut off your grocery supplies because I didn’t want to spend money on you.  Like I said earlier, Cap and I thought that if you didn’t want to eat meals with the rest of the team for some reason, we could at least make sure you came out of the suite a few times a day by forcing you to come down here for food.  Our bad.  We should've just talked to you instead of being emotionally stunted, uncommunicative idiots.  Now, the part I don’t understand is how you made the leap from ‘no automatically delivered groceries’ to ‘stealing cheap granola bars and rationing to the point of near emaciation.’”

“I couldn’t get a job,” Bucky explains.  He faces Steve when he says it, because it’s important that Steve knows he hasn’t changed _that_ much- he’d never steal if he didn’t absolutely have to.  They had plenty of hard times when they were younger, but they always tried to work for what they needed.  “Everybody said I needed paperwork and all kinds of ID.  And I don’t have any money.”

“If you were in need, why did you not ask of any of us?”  Thor leans forward with his elbows on his knees.

“Bigger question,” Stark interrupts, “why do you think you don’t have any money when I know for a fact, because I set it up, that you have a debit and a credit card linked to your own private bank account with enough dough to buy out a supermarket?  Didn’t Cap go over that with you?”

“No,” Steve says softly.  “I didn’t.  Didn’t we agree that you’d do it when you gave him the rundown on life in Stark Tower like you gave me?”

“Well, yeah, but then he put so much effort into avoiding me I figured you took over.”

Bucky looks back and forth between them.  The ache in his chest is transforming from the dull pain of stressed muscles to a sharp burn of hope.  Maybe he hasn’t fucked up so badly after all.  Maybe Stark actually wants him here.

“As simple as that,” Thor sighs.  His massive hand rubs soothingly into Bucky’s ankle and Bucky doesn’t quite know what to do with so much casual touch for just about the first time in his life from someone who isn’t Steve.  “Through your miscommunications, in what else has our friend been neglected?”

“Clothes,” Steve says suddenly.  “I figured…I’m sorry, Buck.  For some reason I thought you were still a little shaky and just felt more comfortable wearing my stuff than getting your own.  But nobody told you how to get more.”

“Team nights,” Stark adds.  “You thought I didn’t want you around the team, so you didn’t think you could join in.  I’m guessing that explains why you stopped using the gym, too.  We all thought you were feeling uncomfortable and shy.  You don’t really know anybody here at all, yet.  Except Steve.”

“And healing,” Thor continues.  “We are all warriors, we are all familiar with the dreams that can haunt us.  You have not been given the same comfort that we expect.”

“I should have had JARVIS keeping a special eye on you, but when he said you asked him to leave you alone, I figured you were just all wigged out about modern robot technology and wanted your privacy,” Stark says.  “Same thing with the arm.  Whiiich comes back to my first question from earlier.  The one about getting shot and keeping it a secret?”  He raises his eyebrows.

So does Steve.

Bucky doesn’t like being ganged up on by double eyebrows, so he glares.  “I didn’t think you wanted to have to remember I exist,” he snaps at Stark.  “And I’m not stupid, I was gonna ask Steve for help when I got back.  But then he wanted to go down to dinner, so I figured I’d ask him in the morning.”

“Except you didn’t make it to morning, because the injury gave you night terrors and a flashbacky panic attack and put you into shock with what must have been absolutely excruciating pain,” Stark sums up.  “Which is why while you were unconscious, me and Dr. Banner and some others managed to detach you from that Soviet POS and clean up the internal supports and neural transmission systems.  You’re not getting that arm back.”

“I can’t fight without two arms!”

“Buck.  Please.”  Stark shakes his knee more roughly and winks at him.  “I’m _Tony Stark_.  I can build fully-mobile sentient toasters on my worst bad days.  I started making you a new arm the day Steve brought you down to my lair.  That’s where I stormed off to.  I’ve just been waiting all this time for you to come back so we could fine-tune the sensory calibrations and decide what kind of gadgets you want in the fingers.”

“I’ve seen it,” Steve jumps in.  “It’s amazing, Bucky.  You have no idea how horrible I feel about leaving you with the HYDRA arm now that I’ve seen what Tony can do.  It weighs just the same as a normal human arm, so it won’t have to be supported by your ribs, and he can connect it so you’ll be able to feel things just like through skin but it won’t hurt you when things go wrong.  It’s incredible.” 

Steve beams at him.  Stark idly strokes his shin, and Thor reaches out to tuck his hair more neatly behind his ears.

“I’m dreaming,” Bucky chokes out.  “This is a dream, isn’t it?  And I’m either gonna wake up back with HYDRA or sitting hungry in Steve’s kitchen.”

“Not dreaming,” Stark says.  “I promise.  I’m so sorry things got so fucked up, Bucky, you can’t even know.  I’m going to spend the rest of my life feeling horribly guilty and buying you ridiculously expensive presents to try and make up for it.  Which reminds me.  JARVIS, tell Happy that tomorrow Sergeant Barnes and I will be doing a full tour of all the luxury wheel dealers in the city.  No, just the supercar dealers.  We might as well get that out of the way first.  What do you go for, Buck?  I think I see you as a Mercedes man, if we’re going for the exotics.  Or maybe we’ll stick to domestics and go with some good old vintage muscle, huh?  What do you say?”

And Bucky doesn't even have time to gasp for breath, because- “Are those code names?” Steve asks suspiciously.  “Are you going to buy him a prostitute?”

Stark huffs and throws himself back into the sofa, kicking his feet up on the coffee table with twin thuds of his flat canvas shoes.  “ _No_ , I’m not going to buy him a prostitute, Captain Morality.  Though if you want to spend a little time with a girl, you just let me know,” he adds as an aside to Bucky, wiggling his eyebrows.  “Or guy.  We’re not picky these days, and it wouldn’t exactly be hard to find somebody if you just flash those baby blues around and we play up the POW vet angle.  I’ll get you one of those awful regular plastic prosthetics to replace the bionic one if you want to go out and pretend to be a regular guy.”

"I will gladly join you in your quest for companionship," Thor offers eagerly.  "My Jane has explained to me the concept of a 'wing man.'  I will tell all the people of New York of your great battle prowess and mighty virility."

"Jesus Christ, Thor.  That is _not_ what a wingman does.  Rogers, don't let them go out together without a chaperone.  I don't need any more lawsuits or insurance claims with 'public indecency by Norse God' in the description box."

Bucky shakes his head and presses his hand over his eyes, pulling his knees up to his chest.  It's all too overwhelming.  In the space of twelve hours he's gone from trying to not exist, to believing he was recaptured and tortured by HYDRA, to being cuddled and apologized to and promised he's wanted.  It's like a souped-up version of one of those fairy tales Mrs. Rogers used to read them when Stevie was sick.

"I can't," he mutters.  Sparks pop behind his eyes.  Not for the first time, he wonders if life wasn't easier when he only had to do what he was told.  Minus the torture, and the brainwashing, and the murdering….

"Hey.  Buck."  Steve leans in and knocks their heads together.  "I know this is kinda crazy, especially when you're still hurting, okay?  All you need to know right now is that nobody's mad at you, everybody wants to help you, and Tony definitely wants you here.  You can go wherever you want and do whatever you want and eat anything in any kitchen in the building.  Got it?"

"Any kitchen except Barton's," Stark mutters.  "And I say that because I like you and don't want you to get food poisoning, not because he doesn't want you in there."

Bucky breathes.  His eyes are still covered.  A hand- the size of a plate, it can only be Thor's- settles on the skin of his neck and mangled shoulder, sinking warmth down into his muscles.  The heat seems to run through him and his body relaxes without his say-so.  His head clears a little.  Bucky wonders if Thor just did a bit of Norse God of Healing magic.  "Thanks, big guy," he says, just in case.

Thor smiles and squeezes his shoulder in response.

"We'll get the new arm on you as soon as you're rested and the swelling around your shoulder goes down," Stark tells him.  Bucky looks up and nods.  Stark's face is still pinched unhappily, but he looks relieved at the acknowledgement.  "Good.  Now.  Food, because you look like a Halloween scarecrow."  He raises his voice.  "Anybody who might happen to be listening in the ceiling or outside the room, naming no spies, start heating up leftovers!  We've got an empty stomach to feed that'll probably put Thor to shame!" 

"Simple foods," Steve calls out.  "Nothing too spicy or rich for a few days."

Thor heaves himself to his feet, giving Bucky one last heavy pat on the shoulder.  "I will make him a stew," he announces, "the like of which is fed on by the hearty men of Valhalla.  I will go to Asgard and bring him the sustenance of the gods.  He will regain his strength through the healing apples of Idunn.  Our shield brother will sup on the meat of Sæhrímnir and drink the honey mead of Heiðrún until he can match the great warrior Volstagg in size!"

Bucky blinks.  "What?"

Steve shakes his head.  "I don't know," he whispers.  "Norse god thing.  Don't worry, if he gives you weird apples I'll just make you apple pie, okay?"

"Until then," Clint interrupts, swanning into the room with his arms covered in carefully balanced platters, "you get pepperoni pizza with the pepperoni picked off, vegetable fried rice, non-spicy cashew chicken, non-spicy tofu yellow curry, fettuccini alfredo, clam chowder in a soggy sourdough bread bowl, and…what the hell is this green stuff?"

"Salad," Dr. Banner says, coming in behind him, Natasha on his heels.  "Spinach salad with nuts, dried fruit, quinoa, and lots of vegetables.  It has vitamins."

" _Vitamins_ ," Clint spits, face screwed up in disgust.  "Ick.  Sorry, Buck, but that's what happens when you live with a doctor."  He sets the plates and bowls out like an expert waiter, not spilling a drop, and throws himself into a chair with a huff.  "And if you wanna share that pizza, I'm your guy.  Ouch!"

Natasha vaults gracefully over the back of Clint's chair, smacking his head as she goes.  "Eat your food, James," she orders.

Bucky stares at the plates.  He's still not sure he's dreaming.  The soup and the pasta look good, but he's not sure how he'll manage with only one hand, and he's not about to ask Steve to help feed him in front of all these people.  He reaches out and picks up a piece of pizza, stuffing half the slice into his mouth in one bite.

"Good job," Stark praises.  "Eat, sleep, and we'll run a check-up to see how soon we can start arm fittings.  We need to talk color schemes."  He pulls a tablet out of somewhere and starts poking at it.  "We've been running through a list of new names for your superhero alter-ego, but since you haven't been around, we haven't gotten anywhere."  
Bucky frowns and reaches for another slice of pizza.  There's another little bubble of home making his chest tight.  "What do you mean, names?  I'm the Winter Soldier."

"You _were_ the Winter Soldier," Steve corrects.  "You're not that anymore.  You can be whoever you want.  Just like all of us."

"Current suggestions are the Blue Buck, which sounds stupid; Sergeant Striker, which is worse; Steel Buckster, which is awesome-"

"Only because you suggested it," Clint sulks.

"Oh, come on, he can't be the _Blue Buck_ ," Stark argues, dropping the tablet to his side to turn and scowl.  "What's his uniform gonna be, a blue suit with antlers on his head?"

"The great warrior Freyr once bested the jotunn Beli with an antler," Thor says, crossing his arms over his chest and nodding vigorously.  "It is a worthy weapon."

Bucky rolls his eyes.  It feels good, like the movement brings back a little bit of himself.  "I am _not_ gonna go out into New York with antlers on my head.  Sorry, Thor."

Thor shrugs.  "No matter.  Even Freyr only used it because he'd lost his sword.  Besides, I would name you after the great warrior Tyr Hymirson.  He has as much strength and courage as any man in Asgard, and has vanquished at least as many foes; and all this without his right hand, which was lost in a feat of the noblest sacrifice."

"Is there anyone in Asgard you wouldn't describe as a 'great warrior'?" Natasha asks curiously.

Thor tilts his head, clearly thinking it through.  "There are kitchen staff who have not been to battle in my lifetime," he says uncertainly.  "But my brother and I felt their wrath often enough as children when we trespassed into their domain.  Warriors they may not be, but they are formidable."

Stark and Clint snicker.

"So…."  Bucky starts.  His brain's running slow, and even though he _wants_ to listen to this guy- someone he never even could've come up with in his most amazing dreams as a kid- he's too stuck on the important things.  "I don't have to be the Soldier anymore?  I can just be an Avenger?"

"No," Steve says seriously.  "You never have to be him again, pal."

  
"I won't lie, the Winter Solder's got skills we can use," Stark adds.  "But I'm pretty sure most of those skills are just James Buchanan Barnes with a lot of practice under his belt, because I've read battle reports from back in the day and you were a kickass sniper and fighter well before anybody but the US Army and the YMCA got their hands on you."

"Yeah, he was," Steve agrees fondly, ruffling Bucky's hair.  "Never wanted anybody else on my left."

Bucky halfheartedly dodges Steve's hand in a long-familiar move and grabs the big plastic mixing bowl full of salad.  He doesn't know what quinoa is, but he knows he's running short on nutrients as well as calories, and Dr. Banner seems to know what he's doing.

"So…can I cut my hair?" Bucky continues through a mouthful of greens.  It's not bad.  The dried fruit is sweet, and quinoa doesn't have much taste.

"Do you want to cut your hair?" Stark asks.

"…Yeah, if that's okay."

"Hey, it's all okay," Stark assures him.  "You can cut your hair however you want.  Do you wanna do it yourself?  We can take you somewhere, or I can call up the guy who comes here to do mine.  Or one of us can take care of it if you don't want some stranger around your head with scissors."

Bucky thinks about it as he gnaws through a sticky clump of dried fruit.  Going outside…not something he really wants to do right now.  And he knows better than to think he could relax and sit still with an unknown, armed man behind his back.  "I don't think I'd be safe to a stranger," he admits.

"I'm pretty good," Clint offers.  "At least, I cut my kids' hair most of the time and my wife's never complained.  And I really doubt giving you a clip can be any harder than trimming up a squirmy little girl who changes her mind every two seconds on whether or not she wants bangs.  Honestly, I feel safer disarming bombs sometimes."

Bucky thinks it over.  Hawkeye's a good soldier.  He's tough.  And he's quick at noticing little tells of movements.  Bucky nods.  "Yeah.  Please.  Thanks.  Maybe tomorrow?"

" _Everything_ is for tomorrow.  Right now you're going to finish eating and go to bed," Steve insists.  "You need to rest up and get better, okay?"

"Right," Stark agrees.  "Dr. Banner and I will check up on you later and we'll see how soon we can get started on things.  JARVIS, keep an eye on him tonight in case he spikes a fever from hanging out in cold, dirty alleys, please?"

" _Yes, sir.  And if Sergeant Barnes is amenable, I will resume tracking his activities and sleep patterns, as with the other permanent inhabitants."_

Permanent inhabitants, Bucky thinks.  "…Yeah, okay.  Sure."

 _"Very good, sir."_   The robot sounds pleased.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops...so this turned into 6 of 7 instead of the last chapter, because I honestly wasn't sure how to close it up neatly and ended up writing these character by character cameos...and then it got to about a chapter length, and I feel bad for leaving you lovely early bird readers hanging for a week, so here you go? Finishes up (definitely) next time with Steve and Tony!  
> p.s. sorry for going all tangential with Thor? I've been reading some really good Loki fics and I guess they were in my head...

Bucky doesn’t change overnight, but nearly everything around him does.

The kitchen’s fully stocked again.  He still doesn’t go down to the common floor most mealtimes, because just the novelty of filling his belly with good-tasting food is overwhelming enough, but he’s put in an appearance on a couple quiet mornings- Stark still dressed in yesterday’s clothes, dozing off over his coffee and tablet; Dr. Banner cautiously sliding the tablet away from Stark’s line of drool and wordlessly chivvying Bucky into a cup of some kinda herbal tea that keeps him calm; Steve puttering happily with Thor at the stove until they can proudly present Bucky with half his own bodyweight in fruit, meats, and cereals.  It’s not so bad.

Even Thor’s magic apples are just a small, yellow, sweeter version of what he’s used to.

Bucky eats them on the sofa while Clint drags Steve off to be a surprise at his son’s birthday party.  Thor carves them into slices with a knife as big his head and what look like real rubies and emeralds set into the handle, and other stones Bucky doesn’t know that almost look like they sparkle from the inside, instead of in reflection.

“A gift from my brother, when we were young,” Thor says, when he catches Bucky eyeing the knife.  He had it crafted for me in secret to commemorate my first successful slaying of a _bilgesnipe_.”

Bucky frowns.  “A what?”

“A _bilgesnipe,_ ” Thor repeats.  “A mighty beast native to Asgard.”

“Apparently something like a cross between a Brontosaurus and a moose,” Stark mutters from an armchair across the room, not looking up from his tablet.  He’s taken to appearing out of nowhere and plopping himself nearby whenever Bucky leaves his and Steve’s floor.  Bucky would feel worried, but it honestly feels like Stark is just trying to make himself available, rather than keeping an eye on him- no matter how strange that sounds. “Only bigger and magic.”

“Swell present,” Bucky hums, wiping apple juice off his chin.  “What’s your brother do?  I mean, if you’re the prince of the kingdom but you’re down here with us mud crawlers so much of the time?”

Thor’s knife slips very slightly on the next cut.

“My brother is not expected to take any hand in ruling Asgard,” Thor says, and it sounds like he’s choosing his words carefully.  “We are…not similar men.  I believe, as boys, we were once closer in aims, but now….”  He hands Bucky the apple slices in his hand, then picks up another from the woven twig basket at his side and twirls the stem out.  “My brother is very clever,” Thor continues.  “He has always felt very deeply, and taken hold of what he believed in with every fiber of his being in a way that I admired as a youth, even as my companions and I mocked him for his single-mindedness.  But though he is a mighty warrior indeed, he never grew to be an imposing sort of man at first sight- a grave mistake to make, as his enemies quickly discover- and he learned to use his words as a weapon greater than any strong arm could carry.  He studied magics with devotion while I still played at being a warrior, and now is one of the greatest _seiðr_ wielders in all the Nine Realms.”

“Huh,” Bucky says.  Put like that, the guy almost sounds a bit like Steve as a kid.  He knows there’s more to the story; it’s obvious, between the frustration in Thor’s voice and the way that Tony’s completely stopped tapping his tablet, still staring down at it but plainly listening intently.  Whatever, though.  It’s not like _he_ has any stones to throw.  “Sure sounds like the guy to know.  He ever gonna stop by?”

Thor’s smile is a small thing through his beard, but pleased.  “Eat your apple.”

***

Dr. Banner gives Bucky a jar of dried garden clippings and says he’s supposed to drink it four times a day.  Bucky wrinkles up his nose.

“It’s dead leaves.”

“And flowers,” Dr. Banner points out.

Bucky still has the hardest time asking questions sometimes, something in the back of his head insisting he’ll just be beaten for it, but in this case it’s plain easy.  “…Why?”

Dr. Banner’s patient explanation about St. John’s Wort and chamomile makes all kinds of sense, it really does, but….

“But it’s still leaves.”

"Healthy leaves."

"But  _leaves_ ," Bucky insists.  "I just got done surviving seventy years of nutrient paste bars and shakes, and whatever shit they felt like feeding me on missions when they could be bothered to feed me at all.  Shouldn't I not have to eat leaves?"

Dr. Banner sighs and pulls off his glasses.  “Not that I’m not delighted with your mental and emotional progress, but why is it that of all the people here I’m the only person besides Steve you feel comfortable arguing with?”

Bucky shrugs.  “I dunno.  One of my therapists says maybe I like it because you cover most of my medical stuff, and if I ever tried to argue back with the HYDRA hack-docs they’d probably just electrocute me or somethin’, but I know you won’t do that, so I’m using you as a substitute to get some closure and self-agency.”  He’s only been back in therapy a few weeks, but more hours a day than before, and with new people this time- POW and long-term torture experts Stark is flying in every day from around the world.  They’re making headway down roads Bucky thought crumbled to rubble.

Dr. Banner smiles.  “Well, fuck you too, then,” he says, and sounds genuinely happy about it.

***

Bucky’s hair is cropped nearly down to his scalp, thanks to a tense half-hour bonding experience with Clint.  What’s left is very soft and healthy, thanks to Tony, who ordered sixteen boxes of scented soaps and lotions and gave him products for every square inch of his body in all the fragrances Bucky liked.

He stands in the shower each morning, surrounded by steaming water and billowing fumes of _Tahitian Beach Walk_ and _Christmas Forest_ , and thinks he remembers what it was like to feel grateful for washing with a sliver of greasy soap instead of lye.

One night, after Stark spent the whole evening showing Bucky how to use his bank accounts and just how much money he really has- then patting his back soothingly as Bucky dry-heaves into a trash can, huddled up under the kitchen table- Bucky fetches the laptop Stark gave him and asks JARVIS to help him learn how to buy things online.

 _“Of course, James.”_ Bucky smiles.  It’s a new thing, this address they’ve agreed on.  His therapists helped him realize that being called ‘Sergeant’ or 'Barnes' made him feel like an impostor in his own skin, but JARVIS fundamentally disapproves of nicknames, so they’ve compromised.  “ _What would you like to buy?”_

“I was thinking…some soap?  Some nice stuff?  For bathing?”

“ _Are the soaps in your shower not acceptable, sir?  I can search for products without-“_

“No, no, my stuff’s fine,” Bucky interrupts quickly, before JARVIS can go off on his own and order Bucky a whole Sears’ ladies department…if that still exists.  But the guy’s as bad as Stark for buying his way out of feeling guilty, even though Bucky’s still adamant that his fuck-ups are nothing for them to feel guilty about.  “I was thinkin’ about sending some stuff to the YMCA or men’s shelters or whatever’s out there now.  You know, now I got more soap and money myself than I can use in a lifetime.”

 _“That is a very kind and generous thought, sir,”_ JARVIS says, sounding warm and surprised.  _“If you like, a number of homeless shelters in the city post lists of the particular hygiene products they most require.  Many food banks also accept donations of bath products.  I can send you the lists._ ”

"Thanks, buddy."

 _“Very good, sir,”_ JARVIS says with a tone like he'd smile if he had a face, and some cheerful big band brass starts up quietly from the speakers.

***

Natasha drags him down to the gym.  He doesn’t have a left arm yet; Dr. Banner wants them to hold off trying Stark’s prototype for a little while until Bucky’s back up to a solid healthy weight, and so his body has a chance to repair some of the internal damage the old arm had been doing for so many years.  But Natasha insists they do some exercises anyway, to keep his muscles strong.

They start out with basic calisthenics, simple stuff he learned to do in his sleep in the Army.  Stark wanders in after a few minutes and hops on a treadmill, but since he’s wearing the Iron Man legs and working on a tablet at the same time, Bucky’s not sure how much of a workout he’s actually getting.

“Clint said you two were hanging out this morning,” Natasha says, breath perfectly even between her push-ups- one-armed, to keep it fair.

“Yeah.”

“On the roof.”

“…Yeah?”

“Why were you hanging out on the roof of one of the tallest skyscrapers in the city, Bucky?”

“He wanted to test his eyesight against the super-soldier serum,” Bucky explains.  It’s not like it had been _his_ idea- Clint just dropped out of the ceiling while Bucky was eating breakfast in his and Steve’s kitchen and waggled a pair of fancy compound bows at him with a smirk.  “We shot sticky arrows at the buildings he doesn’t like.”

Natasha pauses, arms bent but perfectly steady, and Bucky prepares, with a mental eye-roll, for the inevitable lecture.  But-

Natasha grins.

“I’m glad you’re doing better,” she says sincerely, and goes back to her push-ups.


End file.
